ALBANY – A “Bail Reform” memo from Governor Kathy Hochul regarding proposed changes to the controversial bail reform laws has been leaked to the media, including Mid-Hudson News. The plan includes several suggestions that echo those made by law enforcement and local elected officials, including Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro and Sheriff Kirk Imperati.
Hochul is now suggesting that judges will be allowed to set bail not based solely on the “least restrictive” conditions deemed necessary to ensure a return to court. The statute will set forth specific criteria on which judges will base their determinations, including criminal history and history of firearm use or possession. Molinaro, running for Congress against incumbent Antonio Delgado (D-19) has been calling for that change for months. “We need to allow judges to evaluate a defendant’s criminal history and consider the potential danger a defendant poses to the community or themselves.”
The additional proposed changes in Hochul’s “Ten Point Bail Reform” memo include the following:
- Make Repeat Offenses Subject to Arrest and Bail-Eligible;
For offenses that are not currently subject to arrest, police will have the ability to deny a Desk Appearance Ticket (DAT) and arrest an individual who has previously received a DAT within eighteen months. All second offenses within a certain period of time will be bail eligible. - Make Certain Gun-Related Offenses, Hate Crimes Offenses, and Subway Crime Offenses Subject to Arrest and not DAT;
Certain offenses which presently are subject to desk appearance tickets will be made only eligible for arrest. - Make Gun-Related Offenses Bail-Eligible
Certain gun-related offenses will be made bail-eligible. - Targeted Reforms of the Discovery Statute
Three changes will improve the discovery statute:(1) Allow prosecutors to be deemed in “substantial compliance” with the discovery statute; right now, a case can be dismissed for failure to turn over any document, even if all of its contents have previously been provided in a different form. (2) Make a conforming/technical change to enable a case to proceed once a prosecutor has turned over all locatable materials; language in the current law providing for unavailable materials appears in CPL 245.50 (3) but is missing from CPL 245.80 (1)(b) and therefore cannot be effectuated. (3) Exclude traffic infractions from the discovery requirements; the burden is substantial and is making it very hard to pursue traffic infractions. - Targeted Reforms of the Raise the Age Statute
The State has seen a dramatic increase in the number of teens under eighteen carrying guns, with juvenile gun arrests up from 174 in 2018 to 439 in 2021. More than a quarter of these had a prior gun arrest. The Raise the Age statute will be amended in three narrow ways: Gun possession will be sufficient to allow a judge to keep a case in criminal court. Second, the law will give Youth Part judges the authority to access to Family Court records, and all parties to a Youth Part proceeding would have access to Family Court records for the purposes of setting bail, determining appropriate resource needs of the defendant, and sentencing recommendations. Third, a gap in the statute —when defendants who are alleged to have committed a crime before the age of eighteen are not arraigned until they turn eighteen, in most cases, no court has jurisdiction over the offense —will be addressed by granting jurisdiction to Family Court over any person who is charged with committing a crime when they were under eighteen. - Increase Funding for Pretrial, Diversion, and Employment Programs
More funding will be added for pretrial services, including voluntary supports for any case where a defendant is released on their own recognizance (ROR) and mandatory programming (e.g. travel restrictions, electronic monitoring, the threat of remand for future gun possession) for all gun-related cases that are neither remanded nor ROR’d. In addition, the State will work with localities to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for Raise the Age implementation. - Expand Involuntary Commitment and Kendra’s Law
The Governor proposed new spending on mental health services, and the State issued interpretive guidance to expand the use of the involuntary commitment statute. An additional expansion of the ability to address the acute needs of the seriously mentally ill, however, will be to change the statutory standard for involuntary commitment and Kendra’s Law to apply to individuals who pose a danger to themselves through self-neglect. - Increase Funding for Mental Health Treatment
Hochul’s memo says “The Executive Budget committed $21 million for Safe Options Support (SOS) teams to help individuals move off the street into stable housing and, where needed, access mental health and social services. In addition, the Governor’s housing plan includes funding for 10,000 supportive housing units. Further, a recent joint announcement by Governor Hochul and Mayor Adams included funding for 140 additional Safe Haven beds, 350 new stabilization beds, 600 psychiatric hospital beds, and 500 scattered-site supportive housing units. Additional funding will be committed to further increase mental health services and housing capacity, specifically transitional respite housing and additional permanent supportive housing units.”
Molinaro, with a history of increasing services to address mental health treatment, has said “In Dutchess County, we reduced violent crime by 50% while creating initiatives to reduce our jail population by 30% through diverting lower risk or mentally ill defendants into our newly built stabilization center. Our County provides crisis intervention training to law enforcement and utilizes evidence-based pretrial practices to build upon an effective policing and judicial system.”
